Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale

Luca Stromann

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

clara

Lindy

Gemma

I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.

There are no more magazines, no more films, no more substitutes; only me and my shadow

It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge.

There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.

I'm waiting, in my room, which right now is a waiting room. When I go to bed it's a bedroom.

Sometimes, if you ask at the wrong moment, they say no. If you really have to go that can be crucial. Yesterday Dolores wet the floor. Two Aunts hauled her away, a hand under each armpit. She wasn't there for the afternoon walk, but at night she was back in her usual bed. All night we could hear her moaning, off and on.

What did they do to her? We whispered, from bed to bed.

It was the feet they'd do, for a first offense. They used steel cables, frayed at the ends. After that the hands. They didn't care what they did to your feet or your hands, even if it was permanent. Remember, said Aunt Lydia. For our purposes your feet and your hands are not essential.

I like this. I am doing something, on my own. The active, is it a tense? Tensed.

Now and again we vary the route; there's nothing against it, as long as we stay within the barriers. A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.

The Handmaid’s Tale quotes

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